Getting ready for Wondercon – my favorite comic convention. Lots of friends in town, including Matt Haley and his Star Wars blacksploitation extravaganza. Can’t wait to see it!

Last night I finished the 4th re-write of my Elvis Sightings novel. Resubmitted it to an interested agent. But now I feel a gaping hole where the re-writing used to be.

Feels a lot like when you save up for some big purchase like a new car or awesome laptop, you buy it, then feel…not much.

So I am turning my attentions to my zombie novel. 1st person or 3rd? I think in 1st.

The interested agent suggested “Writing to Sell” to help me overcome some, er, writing challenges. I have to admit it helped. A lot. At least with Elvis Sightings. One of the premises is he-man character of a story must do something that can not be done. It is a variation on a number of thematic approaches to story, but that particular central problem is pretty primal.

I found that dynamic for ES, but not yet for zombie. It is gnawing at me.

I remain optimistic that zombie will fill the hole left by Elvis.

Got my pro registration form via email yesterday and signed up today! It’s still seven months away but I’m already super excited for Con!

Just finished working on a pitch for a story about Nazi created zombies run amok in two different eras, the waning days of WWII and today. Shipped it off to an artist friend of mine to start putting some concepts around so we can shop it to the various comic publishers. Yes, I know Nazi Zombies have been done before. I saw that movie too. But this one is different…

I am always happier when I am writing. Even if it is only a few hundred words at a time.

I have been working on my second novel. Been stuck at the 50k-ish point for a which and needed a break from brains and zombie hunters when I saw a call for submissions by Cliffhanger Books looking for super hero stories.

I’d planned to work on it over Xmas and New Year’s week but work interfered. I didn’t have as much time for edits as I wanted, but I still managed to pound out something. One of the themes in super hero stories I have always been interested in is “how do they handle their failures?”

The story I ended up submitting, The Hero of The City, is about exactly that, and how someone who still believes in heroes responds to that failure. Sounds more profound than it is. While I doubt it will end up in the anthology I wrote it for, it was fun to write. A New Year’s gift to myself. And I think the idea might make a good comic book one shot I can work on with one of my artist pals.